This is my first attempt at recapping a game since I started writing, and it's long, so bear with me. I actually sat down and watched the game (on a crappy feed) with a pen and notebook and took notes on just about every play. Of course, you miss a ton of things watching it once, but I think I was able to take note of a lot of things.

The Pittsburgh Steelers opened up their preseason schedule tonight against the Philadelphia Eagles, but the success of this first venture is not the type to be decided by wins and losses. In the preseason, what matters first and foremost is health. Secondary to that is execution and situational role playing.

To that end, there were a few injuries of note during the game, unfortunately, the most severe appearing to be to fullback/tight end David Johnson, who had right tackle Marcus Gilbert fall on his right knee. It did not appear at the time that he was able to put any weight on the knee, and he may be out for the entire season with a torn ACL.

Rookie left tackle Mike Adams also suffered a less severe right knee injury, who left the game near the start of the 2nd quarter after struggling in his NFL debut. Running back Jonathan Dwyer also suffered an AC shoulder sprain. It would be difficult to consider this game a success if the Steelers have indeed lost David Johnson for the season and if Mike Adamsí progress is set back significantly due to his injury.

The following are my own observations on the game.

The Steelers lost the game 23-24 on a last minute 51 yard field goal, but the loss is meaningless in the long run. The Steelers went into the locker room at halftime with a 13-0 lead on scoring drives led by Ben Roethlisberger and Byron Leftwich.

To recap the game, the Steelers opened with a 16 play, nearly 10 minute drive that ultimately led to a 46 yard Shaun Suisham field goal. Some of the new features of the Todd Haley offense were apparent immediately with a significant amount of quick release passes to running backs and tight ends.

Included on that drive was a vintage Ben Roethlisberger scramble on 3rd and 11 that led to an across the field completion to wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders for the first down. Big Ben was sacked twice on the drive, once when Adams failed to get his hands on the edge rusher and again four plays later when left guard Ramon Foster was late out of his stance. The Steelers were 2 for 4 on 3rd down and 1 for 1 on 4th down on the drive.

Rookie 1st round guard David DeCastro overall had an impressive debut, earning few demerits. He was able to pull block several times with success, and had very few mental errors. He was slightly out-manned physically at the goal line, but it was still an impressive debut while playing with the first team offense.

good job. ive been doing nightly recaps for our local indy league baseball team and know it can be very taxing (especially going to every home game w/o taking notes and writing a synopsis with nothing but a margarita buzz and box scores at midnight on a weekday).

A. Our O-linemen inevitably fall victim to injury
B. Not only do they go down, but they tend to injure others in the process of just trying to stay upright. What the heck IS IT WITH THESE GUYS. It really is ridiculous how often this is happening.

__________________MacReady: Beaver pics - don't think we're in much shape to do anything about this threadChilds: Well, what do we do?MacReady: Why don't we just . . .wait here and post for a little while longer . . . see what happens?

A. Our O-linemen inevitably fall victim to injury
B. Not only do they go down, but they tend to injure others in the process of just trying to stay upright. What the heck IS IT WITH THESE GUYS. It really is ridiculous how often this is happening.

Yeah its some BS.....I was hoping we'd at least get 2 games, preferably Games #2 and #3, of

but on first and goal 3 running plays up the middle and an incomplete pass so much for a new O coordinator
same great play calling as last year

Whoa there turbo. Not only is it ridiculous to generalize the entire "play calling" on one goal line series, but hell yes you should be running at the goal line, and you should be pounding it through even when the defense knows its coming. Do you know how many times we did that with Bettis? He had 90- something TD's for a reason.

Haley has said his philosophy offensively is he wants to be able to run with success when the opposing team knows it's coming. So of course he's going to run in that situation, and hopefully, by the start of the season, we'll be able to.

Hey now, we have perfected the game winning score prevent defense stance. That worked precisely as it should.

Rainey looked really good though.

First team except Adams played well. Eagles starters were inept and couldn't do anything and played a couple series to our 1. Sitting in the stands the fans were already yelling at their players from the first snap.